Jade War

It became difficult for anyone watching the contest to follow the movement of the opposing moon blades as the duelists sent them singing against each other, seeking open angles, striving with equal ferocity to connect metal with flesh. Spectators murmured in alarm and scrambled to the edge of the lawn to make more space for the fighters as they raged across the field. Shae’s reality telescoped to the desperate purity of the fight. Her conscious mind all but shut down; only Perception, training, and reflexes could possibly save her from the onslaught. She saw Ayt’s face contort in a snarl of impatience as she lashed out with a flurry of darting, unpredictable slashes meant to overwhelm and confuse her opponent’s sense of both sight and Perception. Cuts rained down on Shae’s arms and torso; her Steel trembled under the strain of constant flexing and her lungs heaved like bellows, scalded with exertion. She sensed rather than saw the impending killing blow—an upward thrust that would pierce the hollow of her throat. Instead of blocking with her own blade, she threw a tight Deflection, just enough to shift Ayt’s aim; the stab passed inches from her left cheek as her own blade lashed out for her enemy’s neck.

Ayt barely twisted away from the lethal maneuver; Shae pressed the attack with a quick upward slash, and a bloody gash opened across the side of Ayt’s head, bisecting her left ear and taking half of it clean off.

Shae heard the collective intake of breath from the watching crowd a split second before she Perceived her opponent’s pain and rage. A slashed ear was a minor injury compared to the killing blow Shae had intended, but there are few things in Kekonese culture more symbolic than a missing ear. Ayt touched the blood on the side of her face in disbelief. For a fraction of a second, Shae was equally astonished. Some part of her had not expected Ayt to be a mere mortal, a woman of flesh and blood like herself, someone who would bleed if cut, someone who could be killed—and then she snapped back to her senses. She was tiring rapidly and could not keep fighting like this much longer; these brief seconds while Ayt was unbalanced—she had to take immediate advantage of them, win while she had the chance.

Shae sidestepped and committed to the momentary opening, throwing her weight into a cleaving, decapitating strike. Far from still being distracted by her superficial injury, Ayt seemed to have been anticipating the move; she shifted her position and met the attack head-on, slamming her own blade into the path of Shae’s weapon with so much force that Shae felt the impact reverberate through her frame and clatter into her teeth. For an instant, they were both rooted in the concussion of the blow. Ayt’s roaring jade aura crashed over Shae like a tidal wave; the churn of their desperately grappling energies filled every bit of her Perception. Faster than a striking cobra, Ayt’s left hand shot out and seized Shae’s sword hand, crushing down on the meat of her thumb in a grip of extraordinary Strength. With a twist, she forced Shae’s weapon downward and vertical, and with Steeled forearm, knocked the blade out of her opponent’s weakened grip. It happened in less than a second: Shae’s moon blade went flying, and Ayt sliced across with her own weapon, snarling as she threw Strength into a disemboweling cut.

Shae Steeled for all her life was worth. It was not fast or hard enough; pain lanced across her abdomen like flame along a line of blasting powder. A sudden hot wetness flowed down the front of her pants as if her bladder had given out all at once. When she looked down, she saw blood running down her legs as if a waterfall faucet had opened up above her navel.

She felt faint; the reality of impending death emptied her mind. Time elongated and turned the world strangely still. In the periphery of her Perception, she sensed Ayt Mada’s murderous triumph descending along with the executioner’s swing of her blade. With every particle of remaining wherewithal left to her, Shae staggered backward and fell to her knees in the grass, arms wide. “Ayt-jen!” she cried out hoarsely, her head thrown back. “I concede!”

She closed her eyes; at any second, she would die. “I concede,” she declared again. She could barely recognize her own voice; it seemed to be coming from someone else. It was hard to think, to grasp words and string them together into a final effort, a thin, calculated lifeline. “You are the greater Green Bone warrior, truly a worthy daughter of the Spear of Kekon. My life and my jade are yours for the taking. If you’re merciful enough to spare me, it’ll be only so I can follow your example and continue contributing what little worth I have to the good of Kekon.”